Skepticism

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I think I’ve been sinning incorrectly

What causes hurricanes? If you asked me that question, I’d mumble something about rising water vapor in equatorial waters condensing and releasing latent heat, pumping energy into the air. A hurricane starts as hot, moist air rising into the atmosphere. If you ask a demented Christian, like Ken Ham, the same question, though, you get a rather different answer.

Hurricanes are a result of people’s sins, Ken Ham, the president and founder of the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter in Williamstown, tweeted on Wednesday.

“Devastating Hurricanes-reminder we live in a fallen groaning world as a result of our sin against a Holy God-it’s our fault not God’s fault,” he tweeted.

In the tweet, he posted a picture with a verse from Romans 8:22: “For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.”

Devastating Hurricanes-reminder we live in a fallen groaning world as a result of our sin against a Holy God-it's our fault not God's fault pic.twitter.com/JwAJWN8oQ0

How does that work, exactly? I’m trying imagine the physics of it. Sinnin’ must produce amazing amounts of heat and moisture if it’s generating hurricanes. And the location! Is there a lot of adultery, fornication, drug use, and sodomy going on in yachts and cruise ships in the mid-Atlantic? I feel like I’m missing out on the most amazing hedonistic parties going on right now.

It’s either that or Christian dogma is remarkably idiotic.

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Bakker and Joyner have joined the others in blaming the people of Houston for the flood, and yes, of course, it’s all about sin, it’s not global warming at all, no sir! Also, the whole world is so aghast at the sinning in Houston that well, y’know, everything is upset. But it’s not global warming!

You believe that God created the hurricanes.
You believe that it was through the actions of the people that the target was chosen by God.
You believe that God is using this hurricane to punish the behaviours.
You believe that God’s ways are not for us to know.

Therefore due to the last point, you’re only guessing as to WHY he sent the hurricane (You THINK it’s due to sin, but without any evidence) and you’re ignoring the fact that predominantly christian areas get hit the most with them.

Logical alternative: God is punishing you for your idiotic version of oppressive Christianity.

It never strikes you as odd how the hurricanes seem to always target the most holy southern parts of your country? The parts that claim to be the most christian God-lovin’ people? The hurricane will flatten an entire town but you’ll praise God for his blessings that you only lost 1 child instead of 2 in the rubble? You’ll see a gay bar destroyed among many others and scream out “SEE??? Told you God hates gays!” and see nothing wrong with this logic?

Who are you to put words into God’s mouth? You just KNOW what he’s thinking, and nothing he can do will ever change your mind on how great he is…even when you suffer because of him. All just to bring you closer to him, obviously. (eye roll)

Of course maybe God has nothing to do with it…but since you reject THAT “crazy theory” right off the bat, you’re left with only one reasonable alternative: God hates you. Why is this so hard to accept? Look in the mirror and change a few views towards people who aren’t what you consider “good” people, and maybe the hurricanes will stop? If you truly believe that God’s doing it all and that you have a rapport and that he forgives, what do you have to lose?

Choice 2 is the answer. And the more idiotic that they become, the more people will recognize the idiocy and move away from it. It is a good thing in the long run as the crazies gain more power in christianity. Of course, there will always be the core that will never leave. There is a lot of overlap from that group with the ones who will never believe anything bad about 45.

PZ you mention good old mid-Atlantic sinning but the low pressure system starts over the north African desert so the sinning there must be very intense given how sparsely settled it is. Or maybe Ken means that ‘other’ god is using his people’s sins to punish us for not following him?? Very confusing. I’ll stay with meteorology.

I do not have the tiniest begin of grasp on why people would worship such a wicked God.

Because for them…
Hate is love.
Evil is good.
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
If you want a picture of a fundamentalist future, imagine a cross smashing into a bleeding human face—for ever.

This explanation makes no sense. The utter absence of hurricanes in Las Vegas and San Francisco (and rarity in New York) indicates that sin is not a sufficient explanation.
Unless, perhaps, the “sin” in question is “legacy of slaveholding,” explaining why the former Confederacy seems to keep getting hit with hurricanes. That would explain it — Mr Ham just doesn’t know what REAL sin is! On second thought, anyone who actually reads the Old Testament would probably not be too enthusiastic about that as an explanation, since it also applies to all of the early “church founders” in the New Testament…

If sin causes hurricanes, and Irma hits the US (which looks extremely likely), that would apparently be the first time two category 4 or greater hurricanes hit the US in one hurricane season, in the first hurricane season after Trump became President. Surely that’s clear evidence that God thinks allowing Trump to be President is a grievous sin?

Up until the Seleucid conquest of Judea in the 2nd century BCE, ancient Jews also believed their troubles were due to sins against God, be they foreign conquerors, plagues, famines or natural disasters. When the Seleucid king Antiochus IV then actually forbid Jewish adherence to God’s laws under penalty of torture and death, the Jewish prophets had to come up with another reason why their people were being punished. That’s when they invented the notion of apocalypticism — God wasn’t punishing them, you see, they were just living in an evil world that would soon be overthrown by a coming messiah.

The stupid belief system of the Robertsons, Dobsons, Bakkers and Joyners is thus a 2,100-year-old throwback to a time when all bad things were caused by human sin. I have no doubt that if and when America becomes a fascist theocratic state, then the inevitable recurring natural disasters would have its leaders clamping down ever harder on people to stop their sinning ways — to no avail, of course, but increasingly harsh religious purges, pograms, imprisonments and executions would proceed just the same.

Ham, Bakker, and co. have made a great big mistake. Quetzacoatl has had enough of Christians moving in on his turf, and he is really furious. I wouldn’t wave those crosses around if I were you, Christians. Hurricanes are nothing compared to what he has in store for you!

Re Zmidponk. Irma destroyed Trump’s $16.9M house on St. Martin. He was desperately trying to sell it, dropping the price in August from $28M. He must have realized that Ham’s god was very, very displeased with him. So displeased, in fact, that Ham’s god would not even send him a buyer at the bargain price. This has many of the characteristics of a Bible morality tale. So sad! But Ham’s god’s wrath was just, in this one case at least. Or as the kids say: tough, but fair.http://www.marketwatch.com/story/richard-bransons-virgin-islands-home-destroyed-by-hurricane-irma-2017-09-07

Even scripturally, Ken Ham is obtuse. Romans 8 isn’t about the Fall, it’s about Redemption. Paul is reassuring stricken believers that their sufferings are only the “groanings” of the world as it delivers them into salvation. Whether or not you buy that theodicy, there’s a huge difference between “Things are getting better, so keep faith” and “Things used to be better but you broke them, so repent.”

Christian bloviation does generate tremendous amounts of hot air, figuratively speaking, but in the case of hurricanes the explanation behind their explanation for them is vastly simpler. To wit: “Christian dogma is remarkably idiotic.”

This is very exciting! If sinning does create a great deal of heat and moisture then we could be looking at a brilliant new alternative energy source. I for one am prepared to do my bit. We just need to do some research to discover which are the moistest and hottest sins. With my luck it’ll be something dull like making graven images or covering oxen, and I don’t have an artistic bone in my body.